Marketing 2.0

Cashing in on RSS

Here's an article from Fortune discussing the business opportunities created by RSS technology. Venture capitalists have created a $100 million to invest in RSS. Companies like Flickr that use RSS to enable their services are being bought by larger media and tech companies.

Link: David Kirkpatrick - Cashing in on RSS - FORTUNE.

Brand Scents

What's the next frontier in differentiating your brand? Do you smell like a winner? That's right, marketeers, creating a unique fragrance for your brand experience.

Fast Company offers this interesting article on using a signature scent as a brand identifier. While we can all visualize using scent in a high-fashion retail environment, would you believe that Samsung and Sony are using it to sell electronics?

"We wanted to add one extra dimension to differentiate our store from the rest," says Christine Belich, executive creative director of the SonyStyle stores, noting that the company is particularly interested in attracting female shoppers to its 16 mall locations.

Here's my favorite quote from an 11-year-old shopper, "I love the smell of technology," he said. "It smells stimulating."

Link: Smells Like Brand Spirit.

Advice for authors

Are you thinking of writing a book? I have started to research and compile resources for a book I plan to write on the digital workplace. Here is some great advice from a successful author and consultant - Seth Godin.

This is pretty daunting stuff, especially the timeframe of at least one year to publish and launch a book through the traditional channels. As an alternative, Seth advises publishing an e-book, perhaps through your weblog.

The bottom line for Mr. Godin is that publishing a book is an opportunity to promote yourself and your ideas. If you give the content away through your site, how will you earn a return for all of your hard work? Will that come in the form of better consulting opportunities?

One of the real challenges I continually bump up against is that content distributed through the web is generally expected to be free. One of the first things I learned as a marketer was that your price says a lot about the quality of your product. While I have found lots of valuable resources online, I pay more attention when I've paid $20 to Amazon or B&N to acquire it.

Link: Seth's Blog: Advice for authors.